Author: Sanjiv Phansalkar
Missing foot soldiers in the war on poverty
Unless the government improves the anemic delivery structure of rural health and education, the neglected and overworked frontline workers will not be able to fight underdevelopment adequately
More attention needed on community mobilizers
Rural development programs often take community mobilization for granted, and those who dedicate themselves to this difficult task are ignored or neglected. This needs to change
Battling social fault lines in rural water supply
The laudable aim of supplying piped water to all rural homes will have to tackle the existing power equations that deeply divide our society, and are tilted in favor of the elite in villages
Water availability and quality in rural water supply
The aim of delivering clean water to rural homes has to address the twin challenges of sufficient local availability of this depleting resource and ensuring basic quality standards
Tap water in rural homes will increase consumption
Once the central government navigates the tricky issue of water governance, we would need to recognize that tap water in every rural home will expand domestic water usage dramatically
Tribal and Dalit youth need new role models
There is need to promote talent among tribal and Dalit girls and boys and build them up as heroes in order to boost self-perception and identity of these depressed communities
Pepper helps Rabhas to live with tuskers
The Rabha people in Assam have taken to cultivating pepper in their homesteads to discourage elephants from ravaging paddy fields, and to also earn a neat income in the bargain
Peri-urban villages shrivel in expanding rings of dryness
The rapidly expanding cities in western and peninsular India are soaking up water from the surrounding countryside for their own needs, leaving peri-urban villages drier in an already water-scarce region
How to revitalize agriculture in India
The government needs to aggressively promote micro-irrigation and small-scale farm mechanization to improve agricultural productivity. It should also connect farmers with markets using latest technological tools
Make lives better for rural people
The new government should act swiftly to take a few measures that would improve the quality of life in rural India significantly without being a big drain on the exchequer
When will rural men own up responsibility?
Rather than holding the state solely accountable for bettering lives of the rural poor, we need to also focus on making men, and not just women, take responsible action for the sake of their families
Dairy farming in tribal regions holds enormous promise
With a little help from the government and specialized agencies, the promotion of dairy farming among the tribal people of central and eastern India has potential to lift millions out of poverty
Ujjwala and waterwheels: reducing women’s drudgery
Regular supply of cooking gas and easier ways to bring drinking water home would significantly reduce the daily drudgery of women in rural areas
Is farmer income support a sustainable solution?
Income support to smallholder farmers is similar to palliative measures like minimum support prices or loan waivers that do not address the problem of an unsustainable population living on a fixed resource base
The travails of India’s forest dwellers
Tribal people who live in and around forests are being continuously pushed beyond the edge of their meager livelihoods and the land where they live, despite laws that are supposed to protect their rights
Is resettling millions of forest dwellers feasible?
A recent Supreme Court order that will likely lead to the largest ever eviction of forest dwellers in India needs to be seen as a wake-up call for state governments to quickly remedy the situation
Income support is healthy tonic for smallholder farmers
Instead of farm loan waivers and minimum support price for crops that distort resource allocation and markets, basic income support to small and marginal farmers is a far better state mechanism
How useful will farmer support be?
It will not be easy to optimally deploy the basic income support announced by the government for small and marginal farmers. The scheme has large exclusions in the landless and the women as well
The unending saga of farm distress in India
Farmers in India will continue to suffer unless there is a fundamental change in the pro-urban policy bias of propping up unsustainably low food prices
Unsafe behavior rampant in the countryside
Whether it is a national trait or simply a rural folly, there is a need to examine the cavalier neglect of basic safety rules that pervades life in villages across the country